Better Than a Dog Fight

Home of the famous in the 17th century, the
Place des Vosges.

Celestial Cement Mixer

by Ric Erickson

Paris:– Monday, 14. February 2005:–
At 12:30 yesterday the sky got very dark and the wind began
to howl, and a great wash of rain, sleet and hail crashed
down on the city and against my north–facing windows.
For good measure, thunder boomed and the sky churned like a
celestial cement mixer.

It did not last long and the sun peeked timidly out
later. But it marked the end of unseasonably high
temperatures to usher in a period of real winter –
Paris style. If the temperature today managed to reach 6
degrees, it was just one step lower on a downward
slide.

Tomorrow morning may give us the sense of
winds from the north of 70 kph, which will hold the
thermometre to no more than 5. It may be partly sunny
sometimes, probably for no more than short
periods.

Saturday midday 'Gloop of the Week.'

Wednesday is forecast to be about the same, or worse. If
it is sunny at all the downside will be a high of no more
than 2 degrees. For Thursday more northern weather will be
swiping diagonally across France from the Channel with
waves of clouds and maybe some timid glimpses of sun. The
high may be up a little bit, at 4 degrees.

Café Life

Sounds of Reality

Howling, screaming, grinding, moaning, a cranking
torrent of racket, the everyday background of free sound
that I've been spared for two weeks, is back. Out of a
soundless cocoon and into hell's brass pit, this audio
steelmill full of rusty ball–bearings and random
nails we take for granted.

What's that noise? That clicking. Is it the harddisk on
its last spin? No, it's from further away, from the
kitchen. The café machine doing its gurgle. Write
this, typing, the keys go down sounding like a flat stick
hitting a garbage can lid, with a follow–up rebound
echo. The floor boards squeak everywhere – is this a
treehouse in a gale?

Should I go back and ask for wax to be stuffed in? No,
no. That silence was deafening, with some casual sounds
getting through. One morning I set two radio–clock
alarms and arranged for a phone call as a backup. As it was
I got up early to make sure they worked.

Bucket of
Borscht

I don't know what the occasion was or if there was any
particular reason for Uncle Den–Den to
invite us over for a feast of
borscht. The one certain thing was that he made enough of
it for many more than we were or for many days, or both. He
does like his soup, but he usually gets it ready–
made at a Pho shop around the corner.

The
no–kidding bucket of borscht.

Maybe it was just that he wanted a couple bowls of it,
but it's not worth making in modest quantities. Anyway, we
were there the Saturday before last and we did our best.
Eight at two bowls each, and we only polished off a third
of it. Maybe there was too much other soup, vodka, wine,
Armangnac.

He called up and said there was borscht left. The
trouble with a couple of litres of soup with things in it,
is it doesn't fit in anything. It's one thing to have a big
pot, and it's another thing to take five litres of it to
Nice for a week. Dimitri and I showed up as summoned and
had some more borscht. We must have got it down to the
halfway mark, and it had improved with age.

But still. Borscht may be the Ukrainian breakfast of
champions, and everyone knows we've been in training with
the buffalo–grass vodka, and we have a lot of will,
but still.

The good part of it was the guy who blew in from the
Falklands, who was good enough to tell us about all the
exciting sheep they have down there. There's nothing like
the tales of the South Atlantic to pass the time while
slogging through bowl after bowl of borscht. He declined a
whack at it, perhaps fearing it was full of
sheep.

The Server–lady Visits Town

Linda Thalman is not devious. She lives out of town in a
place I call the Cadillac Ranch on the edge of the prairie
that runs down from the Ile–de– France to
Chartres. It is flat and there's a lot of sky and if it's
raining, it isn't shy about it. It can be pretty quiet too.
It's not necessary to be deaf to not hear
anything.

We dined on a terrace in February.

She said, "Find something for us to go and see." I
looked in Metropole's Scène column, lifted three
items and sent them off for her to choose one from. She
picked one and I set my radio–alarms and we met near
Victor's house in the Place des Vosges.

We toured the exhibition, which consisted of mostly tiny
photos taken around 1850, of Victor Hugo and friends, and
photographers, and their friends. It was dim, hard to read
the legends, and I was 90 percent deaf. I had no comments
to make. If you have a 'Brownie,' you might have similar
photos.

Linda kept saying it didn't matter. The lunch was on her
so I steered us to a nearby brasserie. We took our time
because the service was slow – a popular place
– it was empty when we finished, with only us taking
the two–hour lunch.

It is harder talking to somebody who is deaf than
listening hard when you are deaf, but Linda did her best.
For what are probably obvious reasons, she wants more
subscribers for her Paris In Sites
Newsletter. I am perfectly willing to say that this
free newsletter is full of interesting information because
Linda writes it.

We tried to think up some special 'hook' as a reason to
put this in here. But, this is February after all –
there isn't much exciting going on except the weather.
Better than a dog fight I guess. The weather I mean. If you
have the same weather where you are, you could subscribe,
and have a little more Paris in your life.

Irene's
Flowers

Irene Benavente, who is an art photographer, does
award–winning photos of flowers so real that they
look like paintings, as you will see in her first
exhibition in Paris. Beginning on Tuesday, 1. March, until
Tuesday, 15. March. Except Sunday and Monday, from 14:30 to
19:00. At the Galerie Arcade Colette, in the Jardins du
Palais Royal, 155. Galerie de Valois and 17. Rue de Valois,
Paris 1. Métro: Palais–Royal. InfoTel.: 01 42
86 05 38.

Balzacienne!

The Furne edition of Balzac's 'La Comédie
Humaine,' the only one proofed by the author and published
in his lifetime, is now online. It includes the entire text
of the novels, many engravings, and additional notes are
available. There is also a search motor for finding your
way around. Here are the URLs – Maison
de Balzac in Paris and the University of
Chicago's ARTFL group.

Headline of the Week

Yet another super headline from Le Parisien today
screamed "Libérés!" The home town
football team has fallen so low, fired their trainer,
whined, and whimpered, that it's gone beyond bottom.
Paris–Saint– Germain snatched victory from
defeat on Sunday evening by thrashing Bordeaux 3–1.
Le Parisien says, 'PSG's first victory over a professional
football club in 2005.' Meanwhile, on other wet turf on
Sunday, the French rugby team stole a victory from England,
by a whisker of 18–17.

The Latest Café
Metropole Club 'Report'

The last club meeting's 'Speak Up of the Week'
club report is more sublime
than it sounds because the club's secretary failed to hear
90 percent of the audio portion, but lived to write a lot
of words based on lips.

After an over–long
absence, a 'Fiat 500 of the Week.'

The coming meeting of the Café Metropole Club
will be on a Thursday again. The Saint's 'Day of the Week'
will be Saint–Alexis. Alexis Falconieri and six rich
merchant pals were obnoxious Florentines who gave up their
lush way of life in 1233 to copy Francis of Assissi, by
founding the 'Servites de Marie' holy order.

Other, mostly true facts about the club can be found on
the 'About the Club' page. The
design of the real edgy club membership card on this page
looks as much like contemporary art online as feeble
reproductions of it. It is far too good to be true that the
club membership itself is free too, but it really is
though.

This Was Metropole One Year Ago

Issue 9.07 – 9. Feb.
2004 – the Café Metropole column started
with, "Too Easy To Quit." The news in the 'Au Bistro'
column was, 'in 5 words' – 'Drugstore Reopens On
Champs–Elysées.' There was a feature titled
'Way Out West' – a Fine Matinée That Was' and
another titled 'A Window of the Past – Martin
Vaughn–James Exhibition.' Laurel Avery's 'Paris Life
had 'A Good Bowl of Matzo Ball Soup.' The repeat
Scène column was titled 'No Duck Soup and No Nuts.'
The update for the 12. February meeting of the Café
Metropole Club was
titled, the 'China Lake Gets On the Map' report. There were
four terrific 'Posters of the Week' and the caption for
Ric's weekly cartoon asked, "No White Hat?"

This Was
Metropole Two Years Ago

Issue 8.07 – 10.
Feb. 2003 – the week's Café Metropole
column began the issue with 'Buzzer Dayz, Signs of Too
Many.' The sole feature was titled, 'Rétromobile
– Wheels of Fire, Real and In Scale 1:6.' The repeat
Scène column's headline was 'What Isn't Rétro
Seems Very Modern.' The report for the Café
Metropole Club meeting on 13. February was headlined,
'Chocolate Frogs?' There were four hot–type 'Posters
of the Week' and Ric's Cartoon of the Week had an apt
caption, "'Cause I Love 'Em"

Valentine's Birthday
Today

For once, a saint who is really on the calendar. This is
of course the obscure 3th century Roman named
Valentine who was asked to heal a notable's kid,
which he did successfully, but got offed anyhow. According
to French legend, 'les Anglais' decided Valentine should be
the patron saint of lovers, because 14. February is the
date that the birds do it. But in 1401 France's Charles VI
founded a 'cour d'amour,' which was a poetical circle meant
to prolong the Middle Ages and
chivalry, gallantry and honor, and fleurs and boxes of
chocolates, of course.

Club member, Jules Verne fan and New Jersey snow expert,
Jim Auman has emailed news about Christo's
7500 saffron gates in New York's Central Park. Since
Saturday normally crusty New Yorkers are going gaga over it
and even Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been talking about
'all the money' thousands of extra visitors to the city
will spend in the couple of weeks the 'Gates' are on view.
Paris had the Pont Neuf wrapped by Christo too, and
Berliners remember the tidy job he did on the old
Reichstag. On view in Manhattan until Sunday, 27.
February.

Today is also the 126th anniversary of 'La Marseillaise'
becoming the French national anthem. It was written one
night in July of 1792 by Claude Rouget de Lisle and
became the 'chant national' in 1795, but nobody bothered
remembering the words. It began as the 'Chant de guerre
pour l'Armée du Rhin,' and was picked up the
revolutionary troops from Marseille who sang it as they
marched into Paris in July of 1792, so Parisians hastily
called it 'La Marseillaise.' Two 'republics' later it
caught on, in 1879.

'Countdowns' Return to
Mercury

The 'Quote of the Week' belongs to Saturday, and is
attributed to Arthur Miller. He said, "The apple
cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we
begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the
strength to see more, not less."

Today's 'Countdown'
Here On Earth

The 100th anniversary
of Jules Verne's death on 24. March 1905 is a mere
46 days from now. Publicity drums have started to roll for
this event, with TV news showing clips of premature space
travel and other dark trips to the centre of the earth,
plus solar–powered airplanes unforeseen by famous
foreseers Jules Verne and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Dubious
Anniversary of Note

This date, in 1929, is remembered in Chicago's history
for the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. This name marks the
mow–down of seven members of 'Bugs' Moran's
North Side Gang. The gangland execution took place in a
beer warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street. Four men, two
dressed at police officers, lined up the victims and opened
up with Tommyguns, leaving no witnesses, and 160 empty
machine gun shells. Not since Dion O'Banion was
wiped out in 1924 were so many rubbed out at once. The
police were stunned and annoyed.

Today's Other
'Notable Dates of the Week'

There are only 320 days left of this year. This is
exactly the same number of 'days left,' as at this time in
1918 when 'Tarzan' first appeared onscreen. This is
completely unconnected to the fact that this year has used
up 45 days, the same number that 1989 had when James
Bond, an American ornithologist and the model for the
fictional spy, died at the age of 89.